ABOUT US

Catalyst is an initiative funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the mSTAR Program to increase adoption of digital payments in India, using a targeted ecosystem approach.

Our vision is to realize an inclusive digital economy that meets the needs of all Indians.

THE CONTEXT: NAVIGATING UNCHARTERED WATERS

India is just starting its digital payments journey. Currently, its performance trails other BRIC nations — Brazil, Russia, and China. In 2014, just over 50 percent of Indian adults held an account with a financial institution compared with nearly 70 percent of adults in other BRIC economies.

Our own survey research shows that 97 percent of retail transactions are conducted in cash or check; only 6 percent of merchants accept digital payments; and just over 10 percent consumers have used a debit card for payments in the last year in India.

However, Indians are now better financially and digitally connected than ever before. This reflects in the growth in Jan Dhan bank accounts for the poor, Aadhaar registrations which provide easy biometric authentication to access services and make transactions, mobile phone accounts, and Internet connectivity. In addition, several fiscal incentives and technology initiatives have been targeted at making India a less cash economy.

Jan Dhan bank accounts

Aadhaar accounts

Phone accounts

Indians with Internet access

Nevertheless, the digital payments last mile remains fragmented due to several factors:

There are far too few digital payment acceptance points for consumer comfort

From the merchants’ perspective, there is insufficient demand from consumers

Synergies across service providers (payment infrastructure companies, banks, fintech innovators) are under-tapped in the absence of market facilitation mechanisms

Regulation lags behind innovation; this imbalance prevents a degree of customer protection needed for the functioning of a healthy market

Our research into Indian consumer and merchant behavior has
generated interesting insights on how to catalyze last mile
payments.

People feel that they are unable to be disciplined about their spending targets and end up "wasting money" if there is free cash lying at home

Communicate and educate benefits

Many consumers have limited awareness of digital payments, because they perceive it to be irrelevant; focusing communication on one sharply defined use case with a clear benefit can be an anchor for broader adoption

Assisted first time use is important

First time use of a new digital payment method is tough for users and carries perceived financial risk; assisted first time payments can mitigate this hurdle

CATALYST IS UNIQUELY POSITIONED TO PUSH THE NEEDLE

Catalyst has three distinct engines of activity, coordinated in a manner in which we hope their sum will be greater than its parts. Our Digital Payments Lab involves implementing a set of coordinated initiatives in a local geographical ecosystem to shift consumer, merchant and supplier behavior from cash to digital payment transactions.

Phase 1

Build digital payment labs in urban and rural geographies to test and to demonstrate workable cash-light systems for consumers, merchants and suppliers, targeting a 10x boost in payment digitization rates.

Phase 2

Institutionalize and scale successful initiatives in close partnership with public and private sector stakeholders, thus crystallizing replicable models for implementation.

Partnering with specialized research agencies to embed structured analytics to assess impact and sustainability of Lab interventions and develop new knowledge in digital financial services space

Building in strategic models and products that leverage lab learnings but can be scaled across wider geographies

Convening policy & regulatory agencies as well as industry & innovation stakeholders to enable, institutionalize and help scale successful experiments

Structured Knowledge Creation

Strategic Innovations

Policies & Partnerships for Change

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02

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CRACKING THE PAYMENTS JUGGERNAUT

Define

Distinct economic geographies (cities, rural clusters or small towns) where local networks of merchants, consumers, distributors financial services providers, and governments transact with each other

Test

Technology and business models by rolling out initiatives and experiments that combine technologies, business models and institutional innovations to drive large-scale digital payments penetration

Support

Policies and regulations that enable digital payments through analyses and recommendations based on success on the ground

Scale

Successful digital payment initiatives across the country by leveraging strategic partnerships and government programs to inform and institutionalize

OUR ROLE - BOTH THAT OF A SPEEDBOAT AND TUGBOAT

Thought Leadership

Design project portfolios, partnerships, end-to-end solutions, enhanced interfaces and hypotheses to be tested on the ground

Advocacy Platform

EVOLUTION OF CATALYST

EVOLUTION OF CATALYST

In November 2015, the Government of India (GoI) and USAID formalize a partnership to promote interoperable digital payment solutions in India, with the objective to expand merchant acceptance and build consumer confidence towards greater adoption and use of such solutions.

CATALYST is an initiative funded by USAID under the mSTAR Program, through funding provided to FHI 360. Housed within IFMR LEAD, the initiative aims to expand digital payments and financial inclusion in India, especially for small merchants and low-income consumers.

Rakesh Mishra

Rakesh is an independent consultant working with various startup ecosystems in India and overseas. Rakesh comes with strong experience of building and scaling up one of India’s finest private incubators (Excubator) for tech startups.

Rakesh has personally mentored more than 1500 startups, has incubated many startups in his early company (Excubator) and has taken large number of workshops on startup development topics. He is a recognized leader in the space of building startup ecosystem and supporting early stage start up ideas.

Rakesh also runs PAN IIT nation- building organization called ‘IIT Mentors’. He regularly engages with various IIT institutions and IIT alumni groups to support their entrepreneurship development initiatives.

Rakesh is recognized as one of the Top Gamification experts in India. He is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur. Rakesh is also an experienced life- coach; he runs a specialized life- rebuilding program called “Master Your Life with me” for senior corporate executives.

Alok Mittal

Alok is Co-founder and CEO of Indifi, a platform for enabling debt financing for small businesses. Alok is also an active angel investor, co-founder of Indian Angel Network, and on the board of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Delhi. Prior to starting Indifi, Alok setup and ran Canaan Partners’ operations in India, investing in high growth technology and internet startups. Earlier, Alok co-founded JobsAhead.com, a leading web-based recruitment business in India, which was acquired by Monster.com, the global leader in online recruitment.Alok earned a BE in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and a MS in computer science from UC Berkeley.

Sanjay Swamy

Sanjay is well known for his founding role at ZipDial (now acquired by Twitter) and his role at mChek, the path breaking startup in secure payments. Sanjay has trodden the path of an entrepreneur all through his career. After completing his bachelor’s degree in engineering, Sanjay headed to Paris where he earned his Master’s degree.

After a stint at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, Sanjay embarked on a journey to build world class teams and products that took him through startups like Ketera and Portal Software, mChek, Zipdial & Ezetap which he co‐founded in 2010.

An active member of the community, Sanjay is a Rotarian and a charter member of TiE, a volunteer at iSPIRT, and organizes the Fintech Panel at the Nasscom Product Conclave. He also played a prominent role on the UIDAI project under the leadership of Nandan Nilekani. He is a frequent speaker and evangelist in the entrepreneurship and payments circuits in the country. Sanjay loves to blog ‐ anything you say that is half‐way intelligent will turn into a subject for his blog.

Rohan Angrish

Rohan has over a decade of experience in building large scale distributed solutions. He was at Oracle for 8 years in Silicon Valley and India before co-founding restaurant payments startup ‘Chalo’ which was acquired by OpenTable. He was subsequently Chief Architect for Mobile Payments at OpenTable, based out of India. Rohan graduated from IIT Bombay with a B.Tech in Computer Science after which he went to Stanford where he got his M.S. in Computer Science.

Application form, including your company’s D-U-N-S number – outlines scope of project and additional details on objectives, timelines etc. as per the guideline provided

Budget and cost share (“skin in the game”) plan – establishes costs and financial information for the project and will include a detailed itemized budget and a narrative defining each budget item

Work plan – visually maps out objectives of the project alongside associated activities and proposed milestones

Monitoring & evaluation plan – creates clear targets and baselines for the project and defines how it contributes to the overarching M&E indicators of Catalyst

Self-assessment form – basic information about your company and its operations to date, based on the stage of your company’s operations.

Signed certifications – set of certifications required from the company for purposes of legal compliance